The Torns will be buoyed by their 14-point, semi-final victory over the Lady Chargers last Saturday. 

However, they  face another tough road trip – this time interstate against the Lady Cobras who finished top of the conference before a 78-60, second semi-final loss to Bendigo last weekend.

The Tornadoes beat Kilsyth 88-76 in round 7 and 87-80 in round 17, but will need to produce their A-game again on Saturday to keep their season alive.

‘‘We’re quietly confident and it feels like a Hobart situation having beaten them twice this year, but they finished on top of the conference for a reason.

‘‘We’re well aware of the challenge facing us, because Kilsyth are a tough team and they are not going to want to go out in straight sets after earning the double chance,’’ Tornadoes head coach Reece Potter said.

Potter said the players were rapt with last week’s semi-final win, not only for defeating intrastate rival Hobart, but because it achieved their pre-season goal of winning a play-off game for the first time in five years.

‘‘We’ve achieved that and we’ve been ticking off goals along the way and we want to continue to do that, but the only way we can do it is to keep winning,’’ he said.

‘‘The girls are preparing well and are focused on the task – we got back to playing really tough, man-to-man defence against Hobart and we got out to a good start early compared to the previous few weeks when we had been chasing our tails against Frankston and Nunawading.

‘‘That is good for the confidence going forward and grinding out a tough win against Hobart, there were a lot of positives out of it.’’

Ali Partridge made an unexpected early return from a shoulder injury and played an important role in eight minutes of court time last week and Potter said she would be better for that run against Kilsyth, with everyone else available to take on the Lady Cobras.

‘‘It will be tough on their home court, but realistically we have as many games on the road this year as we have home games. One great thing about our group is attitude and approach and they have probably more to lose than us, so we will go over there and take it as it comes and play the best team basketball that we can and give ourselves every chance,’’ Potter said.

‘‘We match up on them well as a team and they have to guard our players, we have been getting a lot of contribution from all our players.

‘‘We had great support in Hobart the other night and hopefully we can have a few supporters make the trip and cheer us on.’’